


Disembodied

by Skulker



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Bodyswap, Fuck Or Die, M/M, so consent issues, well Fuck or Stay Bodyswapped Forever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 00:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skulker/pseuds/Skulker
Summary: Sanzo learns what it's like to be a sinner from someone who knows best. Bodyswap, Hakkai/Sanzo





	Disembodied

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lovers' Leap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/221371) by [Kirathaune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirathaune/pseuds/Kirathaune). 



> Do you remember the omake chapter of Saiyuki Reload Blast where the Ikkou fall off a cursed hill and Sanzo and Hakkai, and Goku and Gojyo swap bodies? And have you also read the saucy and well-written fic ["Lovers' Leap"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/221371) by Kirathaune, in which they break the body-swap spell with some enjoyable sex? Well, I did both those things a while ago and it planted a seed. This was a seed that I eventually ended up taking to an uncomfortable, slightly fucked up place that yielded an original enough fic that I felt OK to post it, despite a couple of overlaps that were pretty hard to avoid. Sorry Kirathaune, I borrowed your sexy scenario and used it as inspiration for an introspective thing about damaged, celibate men; I do hope you don't mind.
> 
> So yes, this is my take on how the Ikkou, and specifically Sanzo and Hakkai, would navigate some curse-mandated intimacy from the vantage point of each other's bodies. Spoiler: Cho Hakkai is a scary man to be. Please note that this fic is one of those 'no choice but to screw' scenarios and so consent issues abound. Please take care if that might be uncomfortable for you.

Sanzo lay on the ground, not even bothering to lift his face from the dirt this time. From where he lay he could see the green sleeve of his tunic, the brown hair falling over his eyes and the monocle lying in the grass where it had fallen from his face.

He was still in Hakkai's body.

Around him he could hear Gojyo's voice saying, "we've gotta try again! I'm not staying in your dirty body, kappa." Still Goku, then.

"Well, I'm not falling off that stupid cliff a sixth time," Goku's voice replied. "I nearly snapped one of your little matchstick legs." That was Gojyo.

"Let's think logically," Sanzo heard his own voice say in what were unmistakably Hakkai's careful tones. "Falling off the cliff made us switch bodies, but now we're all switched, it's not moving us again. There must be something else we need to do to switch back."

"You think?" Gojyo said.

"All curses can be broken except very powerful ones, and I can't see why anyone would set one on a random cliff like this."

"There's three villages around here," Sanzo said, sitting up at last. "You think they'd put up a damn warning."

"That's not a bad thought," Hakkai said, standing up and craning around. "There may well be a sign or something. Let's check."

There _was_ a sign, it turned out, and they had in fact passed it. Unfortunately it was mostly grown over and even if it hadn't been, they might not have anticipated exactly what to expect. It said:

_"Before a couple are truly wed_  
They must see inside each other's heads  
And wear the other's clothes... 

_So take the drop down from the peak_  
To experience the hill's mystique  
Where ancient magic flows... 

_For the spell to be undone_  
Then the two must become one  
Or so the legend goes..." 

"What the hell," Sanzo said.

"It is a trifle vague," Hakkai agreed. 

"Trifle vague? It makes no freakin' sense," Goku said. "Two must become one? Any ideas what that means?"

"We screw each another," Gojyo said wryly.

"We kill each another," Sanzo said, glaring at him.

"Come on, it's not the time for riling each other up," Hakkai said. He read the poem out again, then shook his head. "I really can't think what it could mean, though."

Gojyo aimed a frustrated punch at the sign that knocked it clear off its post in a shower of splinters. It ricocheted it against a tree, narrowly missed taking off the top of Goku's head, and finally stuck in the ground a few inches from Sanzo's feet, where they all stared at it in silence for a moment.

"I think Sanzo was joking when he talked about killing each other," Hakkai said mildly.

"Er, sorry," Gojyo said, staring at his new hands in alarm and realising he was piloting the body of god - or close to it. "This is going to take some getting used to."

"Let's hope we don't have time to get used to it. Let's ask around at the nearest town," Hakkai said. "Would you rather go back to the last one, or ahead to the next, Sanzo?"

Sanzo didn't respond. His eye had caught some crude handwriting on the back of the sign. It said 'here's a hint: go fuck yourself'. 

"Sanzo?" Hakkai repeated, and Sanzo looked up to see his own face peering back at him with polite concern. He felt a sudden chill in the pit of his stomach. Two become one? It couldn't mean...

Hakkai followed his gaze and his face went from concerned to serious in a split second. "Ah," he said. "That's not a good omen."

It took the others a moment to follow, but quickly all four of them were wearing matching expressions on a theme of 'what'.

" _Oh, come on,_ " Gojyo said flatly. "I was joking."

"Let's keep calm and check in the village before we jump to any conclusions."

In silence they headed to the Jeep.

\----------------------------------

The ride to the village was awful, and seemed to take hours. With nothing to do but think and worry in the passenger seat, Sanzo really had time to appreciate the awfulness of being stuck in Hakkai's body.

First was the eye. If he'd ever thought about the vision Hakkai got from his prosthetic eye, he would've assumed it would be dimmer. It wasn't. Even shaded by the monocle, it was searingly, bleedingly bright. Reds, pinks and yellows were searingly over saturated; the bright summer sky burned. Gojyo's hair was like a candle flame. Full sun sometimes saturated the whole thing black. It also didn't like to co-operate with the real eye, and the semi-constant perspective shifts, sudden blurriness, and double vision were making him rather queasy. As the final cherry on the cake, it was fucking _heavy_. The pressure and weight against his eyelid gave him the sickening feeling it was going to slide out. He found himself keeping his eyelid firmly shut as much as possible.

The eye, though, was nothing at all compared to the constant skin-crawling misery of the limiters. They bit into his ear ferociously, and he could feel the magic in the cold metal leaking into his body like poisoned anaesthetic. The urge to rip them off was almost unbearable. He was a god-damned monk, and it was taking all of his training on displacement and focus to push them out of his mind.

How did Hakkai live like this?

"There's the town," Hakkai said brightly, as they crested a hill and began the cruise down towards it. _Easy for you to be chipper_ , Sanzo thought. _Must be a relief to get out of this hellhole of a body_. Hakkai seemed to guess what he was thinking, because he caught Sanzo's eye, and asked, "are you all right?" 

"No, I have a damned headache - and the constant bitching and moaning from the backseat isn't helping."

"I can't help it," Gojyo said, sounding more of a whiny brat than Goku ever had, Sanzo thought. "I have never been this hungry in my life."

" _I know_ ," Goku said, grouchily.

"It's insane though. My stomach feels like it's eating itself."

" _I know_."

"Seriously, if I don't get food soon I'm going to die."

" _I hope so_."

"Sheesh, why are you being such an ass?" Gojyo asked. "You should have some sympathy. It's your fucking stomach."

"I don't know," Goku said. Sanzo could see him in the rear-view mirror, curled in a ball with his knees drawn up. He had somehow converted Gojyo's sleek curtain of hair into an unruly red mop, and was glaring out from underneath it. "I feel sick."

"Let's park up here," Hakkai interrupted. "I suggest Gojyo and I head into to town before Gojyo tries to eat his own arm." Gojyo, indeed, had already clambered out and was heading towards the town without even a backwards glance. "I'll find out what I can from the townsfolk. Sanzo, do you want to stay by the Jeep with Goku? You both look like you're suffering."

"Yes," said a small, miserable voice from the backseat.

"I'll be as quick as I can," Hakkai said, stepping out with a slight stumble as he stood on the hem of his robe. Before he left he hesitated, and then drew a pack of cigarettes out of his sleeve and tossed them to Goku. "I think that's what you're after. I wouldn't normally advocate smoking, but I can't see how it can do Gojyo's body any more harm."

"Oh," Goku said, staring at them as if he'd never seen them before. "You think that's what it is?"

"I know that's what it is. I also happen to be in the body of a habitual smoker." He gave Sanzo a tight smile. "So thanks for that, Sanzo. Please refrain from smoking while you have my body."

"You don't get to bitch at me while I'm putting up with this god damn eye of yours."

That made Hakkai wince. _Stupid_ , Sanzo cursed himself; he knew how Hakkai had got his prosthetic eye. Still he was in no mood for apologising, and let Hakkai stalk off to the town in silence.

 _Unless they find a miracle in town, we're going to have to have sex, Hakkai and I_ , Sanzo thought to himself with dull horror. No matter how often he turned the idea over in his mind, it didn't get any less startling. 

His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of a lighter being ineptly struck from the back seat, and he lurched over just in time to stop Goku setting his hair on fire.

"Here, let me," Sanzo said, clambering over into the back next to him. Goku sat obediently, expectantly with the cigarette between his lips and let Sanzo light it.

"Don't suck down on it straight away. Pull a little smoke into your mouth to begin with."

He should have felt worse about teaching Goku how to smoke. Still, at the same time, it was like seeing a wide-eyed teenage Gojyo taking his first eager drag, all fingers and thumbs with no idea how to even hold a cigarette. If he had any of his sense of humour left today, he would have found it amusing.

"Oh," Goku said, puffing a stream of smoke directly into Sanzo's face. It made the real eye sting, and the fake one feel deader than ever. "It's tasty!" he looked at the cigarette as if seeing one for the first time. "It normally smells like dirt."

"Please don't start smoking for real. Your food bill already nearly bankrupts us."

"I won't," Goku said. "I've felt sick and angry all day. It's not worth that." 

They sat in silence for a little while, Sanzo watching Goku smoke and his face smooth out into a broad smile of relief as the nicotine worked its way through his system. Sanzo found himself playing with a cigarette, twirling it around his fingers, feeling unsettled at the sensation of not actually wanting to light it. His thoughts were still going round in a circle, and seeing Goku managing to make _Gojyo_ look innocent was worrying.

"If the sign turns out to be true and you and Gojyo...I mean, are you..." Sanzo started and trailed off, not at all sure what he wanted to say. 

His tone must have been enough, because Goku finished for him: "...going to be ok? I think so." He looked up at Sanzo rather shy and embarrassed, which was vaguely surreal on Gojyo's face. "You know what? I actually feel kind of...sexy? Horny? I don't know the word. I've felt it all day."

"Makes sense. You are trapped in the body of a pervert with the impulse control of a chihuahua, after all."

"No, I think it's _me_ , just not being in my real body. I think my limiter stops me from feeling it. You know, desire and stuff." He took too deep a drag and choked for a second. He drew again more slowly. "I never think about sex stuff normally; it seems kind of gross to me. Which is weird, isn't it? I am eighteen, at least. But then it all changes when my power limiter is off. Then, I wanna do it. Like, I want it bad." 

"Careful, you don't want to smoke the filter," Sanzo interrupted, happy to not have to respond to that.

Goku stubbed it out and continued. "Like, even though I've felt sick and gross all day thanks to the kappa, and I'm too tall, and this stupid hair will _not_ get out of my face - despite everything it feels so good not having my limiter on. Like this is my mind in a normal body, not a crazy youkai body that wants to kill everything, or a human body that's not allowed to feel what it wants. Just like normal, natural, in-the-middle me." He sighed and looked up at Sanzo and for a second Sanzo could see his real face under the mask of his switched body. "Do you think I'll always have to wear the limiter?"

"No," Sanzo said. "It might not seem like it to you, but you are learning impulse control on your own terms. Just on our journey, you've grown up a lot. You're more thoughtful, more empathetic, more centred, less reckless, less stubborn, less childish - and you're still constantly hungry, but it's not the burning obsession it once was - just look at how Gojyo dealt with it compared to you. In time, we should be able to weaken your limiter, little by little."

"Good," Goku said, and smiled. After a moment he looked concerned. "What about you? Are you OK?"

"Yes," Sanzo said, resisting the urge to touch his ear, where the limiters tugged on his flesh like leeches. "I'm not going to lie, I had no concept of what a power limiter was like and I never considered what a-"

"No, no - I know you can deal with that," Goku said, waving dismissively. "I mean, what we're going to have to do."

"I'm going to have to be, aren't I," he snapped. Goku's face fell, and Sanzo immediately felt like a jerk. He could never be as honest as Goku, but he made a stab at it. "Celibacy is right for me now for a few reasons. I really don't want to do it - certainly not here, and now, with Hakkai, like this. I think Hakkai will feel similar. I guess we'll have to burn that bridge if it comes to it."

"Oh, Hakkai..." Goku said, nodding. "Yeah." After a long pause he added. "Can I smoke another one?"

"If you want - but give it a break after that. Gojyo normally makes a box last a few days."

They sat in silence while Goku smoked it down to the filter.

Afterwards, he looked up at Sanzo and said, "I feel like, if this is the only time I'm going to want to have sex for years, it should be someone really...you know, special to me. But then, if I'm going to do it and then go straight back to how I felt before where sex is gross and I can't want it, then I guess it's better it's someone who doesn't care so much. I mean, Gojyo does care about me of course, but he only ever seems to have sex with someone one time before he moves on and never thinks about it ever again, anyway. So I guess it kind of works."

"I guess it kind of does."

"Before that, though," Goku said slowly, "can I kiss you?"

Wordlessly, Sanzo cupped his face - barely noticing the stubbled, scarred edge of Gojyo's jaw and his sharp cheekbone, and met Goku's lips, briefly but firmly. After they parted, he hesitated a moment, letting their foreheads touch, feeling Goku breathe against his mouth, before he drew away.

"Thanks," Goku said, and flashed his usual honest, guileless smile. He stretched back in the seat contentedly.

Sanzo nodded, not knowing what to say - there was nothing _to_ say. That kiss was obviously to make a memory to store away for later when they were both back in their real bodies; back to waiting for the time to be right for them. He was glad they had done it, and glad it was over for now.

After a long, comfortable pause, Goku added, "I _really_ want another cigarette."

Sanzo was grateful for the abrupt return to normality - or what passed for normality today. "Chainsmoke and you really will be sick."

"I know, I know... - hey, look, they're back."

Sanzo looked around to see a mirage of himself and Goku walking side by side - it was Gojyo and Hakkai returning from town, carrying groceries. They didn't look happy.

"Well?"

"It's part of the wedding ceremonies around here," Hakkai explained. "Once they're married, the bride and groom take the leap and spend a day in each other's bodies, and then switch back when they consummate the wedding. The townsfolk were pretty scandalised that a group of men had taken the drop from the hill. It took a while to make them understand that we didn't do it on purpose."

"There's no other way to swap back?"

"No, and by the sounds it if no one has ever stayed swapped for more than a couple of days without it becoming permanent."

"Sorry," Gojyo said to Goku, who shrugged and joined him rooting in the groceries, more out of habit than hunger.

"Great. Any more bad news?" Sanzo spat.

"Yes, actually. The innkeeper wouldn't take us in."

"Why the hell not?"

"I guess he didn't us staging a black-magic gay orgy in his rooms," Gojyo said from the back, though a mouthful of grapes.

Sanzo and Hakkai glared at him and then exchanged a long, uncomfortable stare.

"Tell me you at least got alcohol, right?"

"They sure did," Goku said, peering up from one of the grocery bags. 

Hakkai climbed into the driver's seat and said, "on the drive here I noted what looked like an abandoned house in the woods off the road, about twenty minutes back. That might be our best bet, so let's get moving. To say we were regarded with suspicion is rather an understatement." He fired the ignition and they all jumped as he immediately stalled the Jeep, who made a shrill dragon-shriek in protest. "Ah, sorry," he said, stroking the door in apology. He took a deep breath, managed to start the Jeep properly, and pulled away onto the road. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

 _Fuck,_ Sanzo thought.

 

\----------------------

The house was where Hakkai recalled it and was indeed long abandoned, with the remaining belongings of the original youkai owners scattered and broken in evidence of the first, violent throes of the Minus Wave. They pieced together enough of the living room to have a table to sit and drink around. 

Sanzo had been surprised when Gojyo had immediately drawn all the curtains and cracked open the beers.

"We're really going to do this? Now?" he said. He knew in his heart he was just being obtuse, but it seemed necessary to protest.

"No time like the present," Gojyo said, passing him a beer.

They had all had a beer, though Sanzo barely tasted his, and certainly felt no more relaxed. Hakkai had then departed for a 'moment to himself' upstairs, and Sanzo was left watching Gojyo teach Goku about spirits - and evidently finding something of the same enjoyment Sanzo had found teaching him to smoke. Gojyo was actually looking after him well - pouring him very watered down bourbon and keeping a careful eye that he wasn't getting properly drunk. Still, Goku was taking to the ability to drink spirits without them tasting like paint thinner with gusto, and the bonus joy of mild inebriation even more so. He was chatting away, laughing a lot and quite happily letting himself be seduced by Gojyo - because that's what ywas doing, and rather skilfully too. Sanzo had worried how he might feel watching that, but in fact he just felt relieved that Goku was in safe hands and that those two at least were probably going to come out the other side of this experience no worse for it.

Himself on the other hand....his gut clenched as he heard Hakkai descend the stairs.

Gojyo welcomed him back with a full glass and a hearty: "You have some drinking to catch up on, my friend." 

"So I see," Hakkai said, with his usual trace of humour as if they were in an inn on a normal night, and Sanzo reflected that there wasn't a monk on earth who had self-control of Cho Hakkai. Sanzo couldn't even meet his eye as Hakkai dropped lightly back into his seat. Against his will, his mind replayed again the murmured conversation they'd had before Hakkai had excused himself and departed upstairs:

 _"I'm going to prepare myself,"_ Hakkai had said quietly. He'd seemed genuinely surprised when Sanzo didn't know what that meant and said, _"Do you really want to know?"_. Sanzo was now heartily regretting he'd said _"Of course I want to know; it's my body you're doing it to"_. The memory of Hakkai saying, in his cheerful, bland, practical, matter-of-fact way, _"well, if you must know, I'm going to give myself an enema and then lubricate everything up,"_ had been replayed constantly in his brain ever since. It was as if Hakkai were talking about making a cup of tea rather than the grim reality of literally preparing his anus for some penetration nobody wanted. 

The worst thing was, though, that Hakkai had then disappeared upstairs to actually _do it_ before Sanzo could say anything. He had spent half the car ride here thinking hard about how the hell they were going to negotiate this - who was going to do what, and how he could possibly bear to concede to any of it. Now the choice was taken away from him, though, he knew he really, really needed to be as passive in this encounter as possible. Lie back and think of Buddha and then pretend it never happened. What was Hakkai thinking?

Thankfully, at that moment Gojyo discovered the bottle was empty and shooed Goku into the kitchen to pick a new one.

"Sorry, I seem to have shocked you a bit," Hakkai said in a low voice, once they were alone. "An enema really is necessary, in my view. I did mention that to Gojyo but he seemed to think lubricant and alcohol would do the trick and I suppose it will if you're happy to throw hygiene to the wind." 

"You're talking like you've done this before."

"Quite."

"Really? How many guys have you fucked, seriously?"

"A few," Hakkai said, unexpectedly. "When I was in my self-destructive phase. Although I don't know if it's really relevant experience. I didn't try and make it pleasant for them, nor they for me. I guess I know a little of what not to do," and he trailed off with one of his little laughs. 

"If you're so experienced, shouldn't you be the one giving it?"

"It's precisely because of my experience that I would rather you took me."

Hakkai couldn't meet his eyes when he said that - rare for Hakkai, so Sanzo felt he had no choice. "Fine," he managed to say.

"I sense an unspoken 'but', there, Sanzo?"

"I don't know if I actually can do it," he said, feeling very thankful he wasn't having this conversation with Gojyo. "Physically, I mean. My libido is pretty much non-existent. It has been ever since I can remember. For the longest time I was completely dead inside. Now, I'm a little better. I get hard in my sleep once a month, if that. Almost never when I'm awake. And this situation? The thought of this weird, forced sex with anyone makes me wish I was dead." He said. "In a lot of ways it would be easier if I could just get hammered and lie there and let you do it."

"Do you honestly believe that would easier for you?" Hakkai said, giving him a slightly scornful look. "I think, no matter how careful I was in that scenario, you would hate me for it." He said quietly. "And...I don't know that I could promise to be careful."

Sanzo gazed at him levelly. "What does that mean?" 

"Well, I've been celibate these past few years, but _my_ libido is _not_ silent, much as I would wish it. And, I can't say I like it very much." Hakkai said calmly, like a schoolteacher explaining some unpleasant but distant concept. "It's not that I don't want good things to happen to me. You know; pleasant, comfortable, loving things. In fact, I fantasise them frequently, my little castles in the sky. It's just...in the heat of the moment, they ring so false. They lack that little hint of truth and possibility I need to get me off."

He looked up and his expression had subtly, unsettlingly shifted the way it sometimes did during fights, and Sanzo resisted the urge to lean away as Hakkai continued: "So I think of some other things. Violent stuff; really gory sometimes. A bit of rape - who am I kidding? Lots of rape, though I take much more than I give, so at least that's fair. Humiliation. Bondage. Vines everywhere! Revenge - poor Hazel had a bad time in my head for a little while..." he shook his head as if to clear it.

"I honestly do feel ashamed about it in the cold light of day, and tell myself I'll control my thoughts better next time. I never do. I even tried to abstain from fantasising and masturbating entirely, but that really didn't help. I just dreamt about it instead, and they were not pleasant dreams. At least I have a little control over how low my conscious can sink when I'm awake." He lowered his head. "Perhaps I'm worried over nothing. I haven't had sex in years, and certainly not with someone I respect and rely on as I do you. But, Sanzo, the knowledge that you don't want it, that you'll hate it, that you'll feel like I'm debasing you. That's not a good starting point for me."

"I can see that."

"Frankly - and I'm telling you this because I deserve to have you hate me - frankly, I'm rather turned on by it. I have been all day. That's bad even for me. I feel like-, I feel..." he ducked his head and trailed off.

Sanzo gazed at him. Hakkai _was_ turned on, he realised, unsettled. A lot of what Sanzo had been misreading all day as pure apprehension and anxiety - the catch in his voice, the tension in his posture, the inability to meet his eye - was cast in a new light. Hakkai was really fucking turned on. 

Hakkai looked up slowly. "I'm sorry. Do you hate me?"

"No."

"You pity me, though."

"I pity all four of us. I always have done."

Hakkai laughed. After a long pause he added. "One day I hope I will be ready to love and be loved again. Until then, I'm still a dangerous man, Sanzo. I don't want to hurt you, but please don't trust me not to do it now. You have to be in control of me."

They were interrupted by a minor commotion on the other side of the room, that turned out to be Goku accidentally spilling a lot of beer when Gojyo picked him up - which looked quite amusing in their switched bodies - with a "Oh baby, look at those abs? Do you work out?" 

Hakkai laughed a little. "They make it look so easy."

They did make it look easy. It was kind of like an extended version of the backseat banter, except with extra groping. They were laughing a lot, shedding their clothes like it was a game, and trading insults. He wished he...well, he wished a lot of things about Goku, but what Goku had said in Jeep was the truth. It was probably healthier and easier and just all around better for Goku to explore what sexuality felt like with Gojyo rather than himself right now.

He heard Hakkai sigh next to him, which bought his mind crashing back to his own situation, and suddenly, being faced with how relaxed and happy they looked, the pity in his stomach started turning to panic.

"Hakkai, I can't do that."

"Yes, you can."

"I really-"

Hakkai shushed him, and suddenly pulled him towards the next room. "Stop calling me that," he said mildly, kicking the door so it hung half shut behind them, leaving the room dim but not dark. He let himself be backed against a wall, but Hakkai didn't pin him, just pressed his hands against Sanzo's shoulders and stared into his eyes, smiling. Sanzo repeated "I can't do this-"

"Yes, you can," Hakkai said gently. "Look down at yourself." 

Sanzo did, still finding it bizarre to see Hakkai's green tunic. "You're Cho Hakkai now. What have you got to lose? The purity of your mind? The sanctity of your body? You're already ruined; mind, body and soul, Cho Hakkai. You love this degrading shit."

"Hakkai!"

"Here, let me show you-" and he pushed his mouth to Sanzo's ear to whisper, "I wouldn't trust anyone else with this but you," and then - 

"Shit-" Sanzo exclaimed as the lowest limiter was tugged from his ear, then could say nothing more as his whole body twisted from the inside. Heat flared in the beds of his growing nails; pain caged the nerves in his jaw as his canines lengthened; cold, shivering fingers seemed to trace the first outlines of vines over his skin, under his clothes. He could feel the strength and power in his body as everything enhanced. His senses heightened; he could smell stale smoke and fresh arousal, and hear the sounds of heavy breathing from the next room over their racing heartbeats - his own, and Hakkai's. It was a minute or so before he caught his breath and his composure enough to speak. He gazed into Hakkai's eyes, who was regarding him with an unreadable look somewhere between fascination and terror.

"Are you stupid?" he hissed, gripping Hakkai's shoulders, which suddenly felt very light and breakable.

"Yes," Hakkai said, and kissed his open mouth.

Sanzo froze and just breathed, chest heaving, clinging to his composure as Hakkai kissed his neck, and hands traced up over his hips and chest, down his stomach. His sash was slipped off and the buttons to his tunic eased away. A thousand scraps of repressed desire whirled through his head. He couldn't-

Light fingers traced up his neck, and stroked his cheek. Sanzo opened his eyes and saw his own face - purple eyes dark with desire, pale hair awry, mouth twisted in a wide smile, his lips parted and wet. He looked half mad, and wholly wanton. 

"Hakkai-" he said.

"You're Hakkai now," Hakkai said, and then, in a lightning movement tugged a second limiter free. Sanzo caught his wrist too late and nearly broke it as power surged through his body. He barely felt his nails and teeth sharpen this time. This time, he was overwhelmed by what happened in his head - his whirling thoughts stilled, his blurred desires crystallised, his iron self control dropped away and he suddenly relished seeing his desires bared, as his nose and mouth were full of the taste and scent of prey. 

He opened his eyes and stared into Hakkai's wide, wild ones. "Then who are you?"

"Just a sinner's soul in a the body of a holy man," Hakkai said, leaning close, breathing against his lips. "Although without you in it, there's very little purity in this body. It's longing to be fucked."

With a sudden growl, Sanzo shoved him off so hard so that he fell onto his ass. While he was still stunned, Sanzo followed him to the floor, swarming over him in a sinuous movement, holding his shoulders down hard against the floor.

"Have a _shred_ of dignity," he said, with a growl of contempt into Hakkai's blandly smiling face.

Hakkai in response pulled his own shirt up to the armpits with one hand and slipped his jeans and underwear down to his thighs with the other, going from clothed to essentially naked in about a second. He arched his bare flash against Sanzo, biting his lip. He was hard already. "No," he said. 

One of Hakkai's hands came up to touch Sanzo's chest and he smacked it away, hard. "Don't touch me."

Hakkai shook his hand out, looking amused. "Then I guess I'll have to touch myself."

Sanzo watched his own body spread out beneath him, touching himself in a way he never dared to in real life. With his enhanced senses he could hear and feel every gasp, every hitch of breath; could smell the sweat and lust. He looked beautiful; he looked slutty. It was like seeing his body possessed by a mad incubus.

"Fuck." Sanzo's head was swimming with blood lust; he wanted to bite, to rip, to tear.

"Please do," Hakkai said, knowing his thoughts. "I deserve it."

Sanzo had just been lowering his hungry mouth to Hakkai's neck, but those words cut through everything - the madness, the hunger, the lust. Simple, self-loathing words from the sinner he had promised to protect. Sanzo drew back and stilled, shutting his eyes, forcing his whirling mind to centre, and then to the rich, silent, velvet black of nothingness. Instead of his own body beneath him, he made himself see Hakkai, the Hakkai he had first met, bloodied and broken, unable to understand his desire to keep living. When he opened his eyes, he could still see him: Hakkai with his shallow smile, and deep green eyes.

They stared each other down for a few seconds, Hakkai's eyes begging him.

"No," Sanzo said, finally. "Your sins were forgiven. Your soul was wiped clean. You are pure to me." That stilled Hakkai, too. His hands ceased wandering over his borrowed body and drew together in the centre of his chest. He stared up at Sanzo - like a toy that had wound down. Sanzo continued, "I am not Cho Hakkai, and I won't hurt you, even if you want me to."

Hakkai stared at him for a long moment. "I don't want you to hurt me," he said at last, sounding a little surprised. "Not Cho Hakkai, and certainly not Genjo Sanzo. Not even," he reached up and traced the path of a vine across Sanzo's cheek, "...not even Cho Gonou. I have forgiven myself, too. Just." 

"Then what do you want?"

"I want," he shut his eyes, "I want something somewhere in the overlap of those people to love me. Just a little."

There was a long pause, where Sanzo narrowed his eyes, then his lips.

"You are the most difficult son of a bitch I have ever met," he said at last, and finally let his body do what it had been pleading to do and lowered his face to Hakkai's neck, but not to bite. It was enough to feel the throbbing of his pulse in his veins, to taste his sweat, to feel him shudder beneath his tongue. Hakkai lay back - calm, dreamy and accepting - his pastiche of throes of pleasure vanished, his showy displays gone. His reactions now were subtle, but fascinating and Sanzo followed every tremble of his eyebrows and quirk of his lips. Hakkai didn't attempt to touch either Sanzo or himself again, but just accepted what was given. 

Sanzo was surprised to find that he knew what to do. His youkai body understood desire, could sense, taste, smell what Hakkai needed and thirsted to give it, and Sanzo guided its instincts with a light touch, following whatever felt natural, and was soon letting his mind wander in the mantra of Hakkai's repeated 'yes, yes, oh yes, yes, please, yes.'

The actual fucking was, Sanzo thought later, the least memorable part of the day - except for the part, just before he came, when he could just about see in the person beneath him, Cho Hakkai and Genjo Sanzo at the same time, looking blissed out, yielding, relaxed and natural. He was spread out beneath him, one hand holding his leg up, one arm behind his head to protect it as he was firmly fucked into the floor. He looked happy. He looked...almost...loved.

That was the moment he came, and the moment that it all went black.

He drifted back to consciousness slowly. At first he thought he felt numb, but then he realised he was feeling the absence of things. There were no fangs in his mouth, no limiters on his ear, no prosthetic eye. He was back in his own body. 

He opened his eyes and Hakkai's face was above him, left eye gleaming in the dark. He felt claws pinprick his shoulders. They stayed like that for what seemed like a long time, during which he could hear the wind through the leaves outside and the thud of his own heartbeat, calm and steady. Then Hakkai pulled away from him and hunched back into shadow.

"I need my limiters," he said, in a quiet voice. "You're holding them."

Sanzo opened his palm to see the limiters in a smear of blood where they'd dug into the flesh. They weren't even sharp. He passed them back and watched as Hakkai's power was wrenched painfully back inside of him.

He opened his eyes, and stared at the floor for a moment before looking up. "Thank you, Sanzo," he said.

Sanzo nodded.

They dressed in silence, Sanzo adjusting being back into his own body as quickly as he was already sealing his memory of the last half hour away. His mind was well practiced at protectively returning to its status quo, and he moved his focus from himself to the next room as easily as he'd pass a cigarette from one hand to another. Next door was so silent that he was a little worried, until he stepped out to see Gojyo sprawled on the sofa in just his jeans, with Goku curled up under his arm.

"Hey," Gojyo said, expertly blowing out a luxuriant cloud of smoke and proving the body was back to its rightful owner.

"Is Goku asleep?"

"Yeah, he hit it and quit it all right," Gojyo said, glancing down at him. "He seemed OK." He looked hard at both of them, mostly Hakkai. "I'm pleased to see you guys are in one piece, because I swear to shit it felt like you lost your limiters at one point." 

"Oh, that would have been stupid, wouldn't it?" Hakkai said, sitting across from Gojyo and pouring himself a drink.

"Damn stupid," Sanzo said. 

"Really damn stupid," Gojyo agreed. "Well, at least we're all back to normal."

"And we don't need to talk about it ever again," Sanzo said, sweeping past towards the staircase and a long bath.

But he found himself taking an involuntary glace at them all as he rounded the curve of the stairs: Goku sleeping curled up like a kid, but looking more like a young man than ever. Gojyo staring hard at Hakkai through a cloud of smoke. And Hakkai staring back at Sanzo with shadowed eyes, giving him a smile that was probably genuine.

It wasn't true, of course. They _weren't_ back to normal. They _would_ have to talk about it.

But not now, thank heaven. Not yet.


End file.
